Former President Donald Trump said that if he loses the fraud case brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James, businesses will flee New York in droves.
Former President Donald Trump said Thursday that if he loses the fraud case brought against him by New York Attorney General Letitia James, it will have a deeply chilling effect on businesses in the Big Apple.
“Businesses are watching this case,” President Trump told reporters outside a Manhattan courtroom on Dec. 6. “No business will go back into New York, no business will frankly stay in New York, some businesses are talking about leaving New York because of this action, this very serious action.”
The case centers on allegations that the former president and his company, The Trump Organization, defrauded banks, insurers, and others by allegedly overvaluing his assets and exaggerating his net worth in documents used in deals and to secure loans.
Already, the judge presiding over the case has issued a summary judgment finding President Trump and his company liable for fraud. The current trial is to decide the remaining claims of conspiracy, insurance fraud, and falsifying business records.
President Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican 2024 presidential nomination, has denied any wrongdoing. He has claimed that the case is a politically motivated plot to undermine his run for the White House.
“If you look at the case, we did nothing wrong, there were no victims,” President Trump told reporters on Thursday.
He once again called the case a “witch hunt” and pointed to previous testimony of a Deutsche Bank executive who bolstered the former president’s defense by saying in court that it’s not unusual for there to be differences between a client and the bank about a client’s asset values when they apply for a loan.
Bank Executive Testifies
David Williams, a Deutsche Bank executive who worked on at least one of three loans the bank gave to President Trump, testified on Nov. 28 that it isn’t unusual for a bank to cut a client’s stated asset value—even by half—and still approve a loan, just like it did with the former president.
By Tom Ozimek
